What if Douglas Adams was right?

Question

What if we are not the most intelligent species on this planet? Would this cause you to rethink anything?

According to Adams' Guide...satircal as it is...we're the third most intelligent.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hitchhiker's_Guide_to_the_Galaxy

Answer 1

He's not the first or the last SF author to explore this concept.

He was just one of the best written.

I always am kind otthe white mice.

42

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Answer 2

We always measure relative wonderfulness by how much like humans something is. Any non-human is at an automatic disadvantage.

For instance, we tend to regard dinosaurs as nature's failure because they went extinct. But even with the most liberal estimates, humans have been around for a fraction of the time that dinos ruled the planet.

Grass is a more successful life-form. Fungi are the biggest. In the war against parasites, we are constantly losing. Cockroaches will outlast us. Ants have better societies.

Even using our own standards, Bonobos are happier primates.

CD

Answer 3

I have heard that blue whales have larger brains than human beings, and that reciting a whale song is the equivalent of a human replaying a symphony after hearing it only once.

Considering that humans have only recently learned about the mental abilities of autistic people, the comatose, and other species like chimps, it would not surprise me if we were not the most intelligent species in the history of our planet...just the most technological one.

I have never read Douglas Adams, but he seems like a funny guy. I will have to pick up his Hitchiker series.

Answer 4

Yup, the mice are the most intelligent, dolphins 2nd. And the earth only exist because the mice created it so that they could get the get the ultimate question. Hehe, excellent books, sheit movie.
If another life-form suddenly revealed itself to be more intelligent than **** sapiens, it would of course cause a massive change in perspective, for anyone and everyone. How people would react will probably depend on their current point of view. For myself, well, it would depend first on what the more intelligent specie has to say for itself. :)

Answer 5

I would pray to the Gods that if there were another species more intelligent than us on this planet that they might be able to straighten this mess out. Douglas Adams, One of the best human beings to grace this world. I just wish i could have shared a few pints and tales with him before he tripped over the Rainbow. ~ Charlie

Answer 6

If you compare a dolphin's life with ours, it's hard to argue that ours is better.

It's like the class and cultural biases that get built into IQ tests, any way we have of measuring intelligence presumes a particular model of intelligence.

We've only just begun to understand that.

Answer 7

"Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-eight million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue-green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea."

He's right, you know...

Answer 8

nicely, I as quickly as opened a equipment of cheese slices and there grew to become right into a small slip of paper interior with photograph training on a thank you to open the guy packets. apparently, it grew to become into that scene from "The Hitchhikers handbook" that as we communicate got here to innovations. do not panic.

Answer 9

43 is the new answer, 42 was outdated.

Answer 10

That may be true at the present time, but human have potential that the fish don't have.